History made fun!
This game is a marvelous game. Often viewed as a rehash, this version yields more characters and more features. The weapons level up, a cool feature. Elemental properties of weapons are controlled by orbs and not assigned to a specific weapon, another cool feature. I remember getting the fourth weapons in Dynasty Warriors 3 and having some without elements. This proved disappointing. In DW4 you get to assign your own element by equipping the orb of your choice.
While the create you own character deal is highly overused, DW4 does a pretty good job, although the characters a bit too generic. This is easily rectified by the fact that they are pretty cool to make, and you can name them however you like.
This game is just so much fun, you get to run around killing people with warriors that actually existed, can it get much better than that? This game gives history and fun in a wonderful package. Everyone should pick up this game at least once in their lifetime.